Uit Verre Streken Guus Röell & Dickie Zebregs GUUS RÖELL & DICKIE ZEBREGS Uit Verre Streken from Distant Shores
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Uit verre streken Guus Röell & Dickie Zebregs GUUS RÖELL & DICKIE ZEBREGS Uit verre streken from distant shores Colonial Art and Antiques, Exotica, Natural History and Scientific Taxidermy. The Age of European Exploration, 17th - 19th century Amsterdam & Maastricht, December 2020 s a c i r e m A e th d an Europe 1 A rare and fine terrestrial table-globe by Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr (1671-1750) Nuremberg, 1728 GLOBUS TERRESTRIS in quo locorum situs terraeque facies, secundum praecipuas celeberrimorum nostri oevi Astronomorum et Geographorum observationes opera IOH. GABR. DOPPELMAIERI Mathem. Prof. Publ. Norib. Exhibentur, concinnatus á Ioh. George. Puschnero Chalcographo Norib. A.C. 1728 Diam. 31.7 cm The globe is made up of twelve engraved and finely hand- coloured gores laid onto a hollow paper-mâché and plaster sphere, the equatorial and meridian of Ferro graduated in individual degrees and labelled every 5°, the Polar and Tropic circles graduated in degrees but not labelled, the ecliptic graduated in individual days of the houses of the Zodiac with names and sigils and labelled every ten days. In the Southern Pacific a second cartouche surrounded by portraits of the various famous explorers. The tracks of several explorers are also shown. Many more interesting details and descriptions can be found on this globe. A stamped brass hour dial and pointer sits on top of the engraved brass meridian circle graduated in four quadrants, fitted in a darkened oak Dutch- style stand. The octagonal horizon with beautifully hand-coloured engraved paper showing degrees of amplitude and azimuth in four quadrants, days of the month with Saint’s Days and days of the Zodiac and wind directions. On the circular base of the stand is fitted a compass with a sundial. science, in particular in the work of scientists like Newton, Huygens and Johann Gabriel Doppelmayr was a prolific globe-maker in early eighteenth- Descartes. He translated several works on astronomy and cartography, such century Nuremberg, as well as a distinguished mathematician, translator, as Nicolas Bion’s L’usage des globes célestes et terrestres, et des sphères and writer, editor and teacher. He studied in Altdorf and Halle, and travelled Astronomy by Thomas Street, as well as producing scientific works of his widely in Germany, England and the Netherlands. In 1704 he became own, including his Atlas novus coelestia in 1742. Besides, his work involved professor of Mathematics at the Aegidien Gymnasium in Nuremberg. Globe- carrying out various astronomical and meteorological observations and making was only a small part of his general efforts to encourage interest in experiments with electrical phenomena. Indeed, it seems likely that his death in 1750 was the result of an electric shock received while experimenting with 2 the newly invented electrical condensers. Reinier Nooms, called ‘Zeeman’ (1623/4-1667) It may have been an association with the cartographer Johann Baptist View of the Amsterdam Harbour with the West-Indian Warehouse and the Homann (1664-1724) which awakened in Doppelmayr an interest in Pepper Wharf on the Rapenburg Island, circa 1654 globes, originating with his contribution of an article entitled Einleitung zur Geographie for Homann’s atlas of 1714. The present terrestrial globe, Signed R. Zeeman on the flag lower centre dated 1728, is one of the very first, extremely impressive globes, made by Doppelmayr, both in design and in execution. Stevenson records that there Oil on canvas, 37.3 x 51.2 cm “are scarcely any map records of the period more interesting than those found on this globe of Doppelmayr’s.” Following the decline of Dutch globe-making Provenance: at the beginning of the 18th century, Doppelmayr was the first successful - Anonymous sale, Van Eyck Leiden, 1 June 1765, lot 122, as een dito globe-maker in Germany and soon dominated the German market for cheap [Admiraliteitswerf te Amsterdam] met zynde een Gezigt van het Y, 15 x 19.5 duim but finely drawn and constructed globes. [39.2 x 50.2 cm] (sold together with lot 121 for fl. 33,- to Bach) - Acquired before 1920 by Jan Hendrik Cornelis Salberg (1877-1942), Hilversum, For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/doppelmayr-globe bequeathed to his wife Mrs. S.J.M. Salberg-Feijen (1896-1988), thence by descent The present picture is the only surviving 17th century painting in which the West-Indian Warehouse is depicted where the earliest government of New Amsterdam/New York was based and from where Johan Maurits was sent off to the New World. It offers a view of the island Rapenburg, from left to right first the old WIC warehouse, then the Pepper Wharf with two careened ships. Most prominently visible is the West-Indian Warehouse of 1642, where the Lords XIX had their administrative centre and from where they ruled the new colony New-Amsterdam. Twice a week, applicants were able to register here for settlement in Manhattan, claiming grants and free land. The interest however remained small. The Montelbaanstoren sticks out from behind the warehouse, while the flute ship ‘De Liefde’ (Love) is moored in front of it, which also appears in an etching by the artist. Nooms was the sole marine artist in the inventory of the famed Admiral Michiel de Ruyter. The painter signed his work simply with the word ‘Zeeman’ (Sailor) and it was in this function that he accompanied De Ruyter on his journey to the Mediterranean, which took place from 1661 to 1663. Little is known of his life, other than that he was a maritime painter, best known for his drawings and etchings of all Dutch 17th century ship-types and his reliable and down-to-earth representation of the maritime practice (for a painting by ‘Zeeman’ of Dutch ships off a Mediterranean coast see: Uit Verre Streken, March 2018, no. 3). Presumably he started painting and drawing in his later years, after a life as sailor. How he acquired his skills as an artist is not known, but his knowledge of ships is evident from his work. For further reading: www.zebregsroell.com/wic-warehouse 3 Jan de Baen (1633-1702) Portrait of Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen, the ‘Brazilian’ Grey chalk, heightened in white, brown ink frame, on blue paper 380 x 291 mm Verso a Portrait of a seated Scholar, annotated in graphite by a later hand C. Hughens and in brown ink Bart van der Elst This newly discovered drawing, the verso of which is first mentioned in a catalogue of 1817, is directly related to the famous portrait by De Baen. Rather than being a preparatory drawing, it probably served as a studio example for the production of painted copies. One of the most respected and searched after portraitists of his lifetime, Jan de Baen’s fame ran parallel to the apex and decline of the Dutch Republic. The turmoil of the rampjaar (the disaster year of 1672) did not come without effects for the artist. His studio was overrun by rioters who were after images of the De Witt brothers, the respected statesmen who had been lynched shortly before by the mob. The present drawing has a repair probably dating from shortly after this event, which thus might have caused the damage. Provenance: - Anonymous sale, Huybrechts & Carré, The Hague, 26 March 1817, no. 60, Kunstboek C as ‘Het portrait van eenen geleerden; breed en krachtig met roet, door de Baan.’ (verso) - Private collection, Munich Portrait of Johann Maurits von Nassau- Siegen by Jan de Baen, c. 1668-1670 (Museum Mauritshuis Den Haag) ‘The Brazilian’ Johan Maurits, the Prince of Nassau-Siegen had been appointed Governor- General of Dutch Brazil in 1637, a position he held for six and a half years. Under his rule an extensive group of artists and scientist, among them Frans Post, Albert Eckhout and Georg Markgraf, depicted and researched the colonized country and its inhabitants. Upon his return, Johan Maurits had the Mauritshuis built, the city palace that was scornfully named ‘Sugar Palace’ by local residents for its flamboyance and as a reference to the industry that had raised the funds for it. The rooms formed a cabinet of curiosities filled with objects brought back and visitors could marvel at the paintings by Frans Post and Albert Eckhout, the many stuffed animals and West Indian artifacts. Upon his return to The Hague, the prince eventually brought a group of Tupaya Indigenous to perform a dance in his new residence. The nakedness of the dancers provoked shocked and indignant reactions among the spectators. Dutch Brazil consisted of a coastal area in the north-east that admiral Loncq had captured from the Portuguese for the WIC in 1630 (for a portrait of Loncq see Uit Verre Streken, November 2015, no. 4). The Portuguese had set up a lucrative sugar industry that was reliant on the labour of enslaved Africans. Hence it became the first large Dutch plantation colony in the Atlantic area. At first, the Dutch regarded slavery and colonisation as an ‘unchristian’ act perpetrated by their Catholic enemies. There were a number of Dutch individuals in the early decades of the 17th century, including pastors, but also administrators, who spoke out against inhumane slavery, but the beckoning profits silenced their criticism. Johan Maurits occupies a central role in this history and was therefore nicknamed ‘the Brazilian’. After his arrival he revived the plantation economy by providing loans to the Portuguese to run the (abandoned) sugar mills, but quickly felt he was too reliant on them. In 1637 the Governor equipped a fleet tasked with capturing the Portuguese trading post Elmina Castle in Ghana and later the city of Luanda in Angola as well: the most important slave depots at that time.